One of America’s premier architectural geniuses, Pelli passed away in 2019 at the age of 92. He was born in Argentina and came to the United States in his mid-twenties to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Illinois. Then he joined the team led by the architect who would become his mentor, Eero Saarinen. As a project designer on Saarinen’s team, Pelli worked on his first iconic airport structure, the TWA Terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
If you’ve traveled through Washington D.C., you may be familiar with the architect’s design for the B/C Terminal at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. According to Pelli, he intended his design “to establish a connection with the civic architecture of Washington, DC.” Today, passengers can see his creative combination of steel and glass with domes that reflect iconic Washington buildings, such as the Library of Congress and the Jefferson Memorial.